Crash of Tu-154 at Smolensk-North--could it have been a bomb in the Polish plane?

May be I also became paranoid but when somebody trying to put public attention on the obviously meaningless "evidenses" - the aim could be not to find the truth but put us as far as possible from it.

Evidence, Jed. Pieces of evidence would be one way to pluralise it.

Don't you find it strange that Putin would head-up the investigation?

It is extraordinary event and it's OK from my point of view that PM take resposibility for that. We have no allergic reaction for words "Putin" and "KGB". Putin is our PM now.

Well, Marty Burns has a way of getting things done :)

Do you have a link to a schematic/blueprint of a TU-154?...I have been unable to find one that details where the main fuel storage are is...Some fuel can be stored in the wing area, but may times the primary storage are is in/under the cargo section...The question also must be asked as to what kind of jet fuel was used...Some fuels have a very high ignition temperature...The TU-154 has a large turbo-fan above the rest of the fuselage in the tail section.

In the case of the Polish flight, it is possible that the explosion was caused by collision with the trees, which in turn caused a leakage of fuel and subsequent explosion.

A bomb could have also cause the explosion.

Various reports about 'black box' recordings:

digitaljournal.com/article/290659

Any evidence? Who in Poland could be intersted in this crash?

I already published a link to complete schematic of TU-154M fuel system (overlayed on plane contours) on this forum. Use forum search, it was during famous discussion about fuel dumping nozzles. ;) It was in Autocad DXF format, so you'll need some converter to see it.

Yes, I know about Mogilevich and the Bank of NY affair...Mogilevich big: He lived in Budapest and owned a big chunk of the Hungarian arms industry, he was involved in all kinds of deals all over the globe, reputedly even dealing plutonium obtained from parts of former USSR...Dangerous man, but I don't even know if he is still alive...He might have someone else running his affairs now, a 'junior executive' type.

I don't think he was involved with this in any way...He is not a 'hit man': he orders hits when someone threatens his money, and what profit would there be for him in this case?

In the plane crash case, if there was foul play, I think it will be covered up by Russians or Poles.

Did anyone else see the ghostly image of a headless horseman in that video....or was it just me.....?

Photoshop witnessed record profits :)

Poles are not blind and did not 'suspend their brains': (remove space bars)
groups.google.pl/group/soc.culture.polish/browse_thread/thread/2 7bf64856b7c7caf?fwc=1

Really only very few believes the propaganda that's present in the news. What you need to understand is the fact that Poland was a satellite country of Russia for many years (after Jalta pact). Therefore when communism was abolished in 1989 - old system people didn't just simply stop coming into the work. These old system people still have their influences and this is exactly what Lech Kaczynski was successfully fighting against. By the way Polish nation has proved to be brave many times across centuries in the history and I'm sure it will not fail this time.

smolensk-2010.pl/2010-06-16-evidence-tragic-polish-flight-was-no-accident.html
this is an interesting article. He is not a conspiracy theorist and I question anybody here to point out his lies. He has pieced together his account very nicely and, when coupled with the views of advanced pilots, makes for a strong case.

A CIA spy for over 30 years is not a conspiracy theorist? I think that comes with territory!
I think that the guy who wrote this, a cold war spy since before the Cuban missile crisis, is looking for things to fit into the world as he knows it. If someone asks me: if you were to assume that russians did it, how could they have done it, I could spin a believable tale too, but that does not mean it is what happened.

You have a point there, f stop. However, that doesn't mean that his account is inaccurate. He just has inbuilt bias which, you are right to imply, lowers his credibility. That's why we need an independent investigation. We need more consensus amongst pilots too. Many are just braggarts who spout all this technological gobbledegook and jargon but rarely agree on key details.

Why isn't there an independent investigation being conducted? The answer is obvious. Without spelling it out so explicitly, just think of the inept Goldstone Report over OCL from 27/12/08 - 18/01/09. Tragic!

Russia is no better than Israel when it comes to heading up investigations that would be better in the hands of others. 9/11 was a pretext for invasion, Smolensk for bringing Russia closer to Poland. Both have had dubious success!

Most I know, think investigation was thorough and are impressed with Ms. I forget her name... queen of MAK..
The only pilots that disagree are the ones that stopped flying decades ago.

Hmm...not really. Check out pprune.org for discussions amongst aviation experts of yesteryear, and of today. They lay the issues bare and come to various conclusions. We need a simplified version to be spelled out for laypeople.

We need a full discussion and not merely a statement of likely position. Experts should be put to the sword as there are holes. I'm not suggesting any conspiracy here, just a thorough investigation leaving no stone unturned.

Is "the pilot put the plane into the ground" simplified enough?

Seanus - sadly, you've posted a link to someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.


As I'm sick in the face of saying - what ILS? There certainly wasn't a "standard ILS" system installed at Smolensk-North.

There's other mistakes too, but this one kinda puts a hole in his credibility, don't you think?

Ah, what the hell - he also mentions that the outer marker was "2 kilometres from the runway" - which is yet another verifiable mistake on his part. Ahh...too easy :)

(I'm still waiting for a conspiracy theory that actually gets the facts right)

Why wait for further investigation if that is simple enough, delph? That doesn't make sense.

Ah, but why did the ATC guy say he didn't know their altitude, TWICE? It was in an interview and made available on pprune. From 23-37 I think.

Probably because they have to check everything to make sure that it was pilot error - rushing out a report saying so wouldn't be believed by anyone, but if they do the job properly and really investigate what happened, they might be able to prevent future accidents.

Certainly, I wonder if the Polish report will comprehensively examine the Air Force culture.


There's something odd about this whole interview with the ATC guy - I wonder if it's actually genuine?

but none of them point to consipracy. They tend to look at facts on face value without bringing in a thousand year history into the mix.

Just a side vent: I really don't like the CIA guy's use of the word 'slaughter', when he refers to Katyń. Rubbs me wrong. That word is better suitted for killing of animals, regadless how inhuman that act was. I can't imagine saying "my grandfather was slaughtered in Katyń".

But you've already said many times that it was so why the need to check?

They trotted out a line very quickly with minimal data just after, delph. This echoed the position on 9/11 where all the pre-prepped stories were wheeled out on cue. So many outright lies regarding knowledge of language and no of landing attempts, to name but two.

I wonder if many articles are genuine tbh. You don't pull things from the sky and plop them into articles for a laugh when the magnitude of the case is of such severity.

Sure, it could have been a bomb...But, just like Katyn, we will not know who the killers are for years...I don't feel it was Putin...Just like Moscow metro bombing and Beslan atrocity, other forces at work.

whole thing looks to me as typical British scheme.

interesting for those that can read Polish.

It concerns heights and statements made, inter alia.

Just as a matter of interest...News is just coming in that a Tu 154 heading to Moscow suffered some major system and power failures at 40,000 feet and lost height very rapidly...the Two Russian pilots managed to get the aircraft to an emergency military runway and landed it on a runway that was way too short... The lack of power meant there was no going around for a second attempt , and they put it down first time...

The aircraft ran off the end of the runway , and went a further 200 yards into the forest...despite this , there was minimal damage to the aircraft , and no injuries on board...

dam fine piece of flying..these guys are heroes....!

I think maybe its time this old aircraft went into retirement...

New news. They are going to run a simulation of the Smoleńsk incident. It shouldn't have been so hard for him to land it and they are gonna draw some conclusions from the simulation.

Bloody excellent piece of flying, I think :)


It'll be interesting to see what they conclude from it - they should be able to replicate the exact conditions (and information given) - but I suspect that we'll still be left with one huge question mark - why did the pilot go below minimums?

I just read that Polish article.

According to that article, it said that investigator when he was in the US, said the major at the Smolensk airport GAVE permission for the airplane to land AFTER the Polish crew ASKED FOR PERMISSION to land. Hmmmmmm

As the article said, once the Polish plane was lured by the tower to go to 50 feet it was all over.

Oh boy this is a hard hitting current development.

I know my pal Delhiodomine is going to have a heart attack when he hears about this LOL

Yep..all the technical equipment in the world cannot show what is going through a pilots mind....why they made a decision that resulted in disaster...

There are only two possible explanations...one is they did not know they were dangerouly low , which i think is unlikely given the warnings from air control and from their own crew member...

The other is that they deliberatly went below a safe height in order to try and catch a glimpse of the runway and land the aircraft...sadly they were below the level of the runway and flew into the ground before they reached it...

They debunked the nonsense that the witness was called Andrzej Menerei or whatever they called him. The real witness came forward and presented himself to Polish tv. The Russian ATC guy lied. A woman, fluent in Russian and Polish and familiar with personnel there, called them and asked to speak to one of them. He answered, she instantly recognised his voice and he denied it was him. It has been on Polish tv twice now.

He went below minimums for, I believe, a very simple reason. In Polish, they say JAR. It's sth like a valley. There was a ground radar and one in the plane, of course. Let's look at it this way. The radar in the plane measured the distance to the valley base and not the ground-level radar that the ATC have at their disposal. The break in communication on the Russian side was fatal. They suddenly claimed to have lost contact.

Explain this to me, delph. How could they not tell how quickly the plane was descending at the ATC? That's absurd!